Surveillance Complaint

Neither myself on his behalf nor Anthony have requested asylum. I have never worked for Boston College and did not do any work, paid or unpaid, on the Belfast Project.

However, I have been in contact with the US Consulate in Belfast and the Embassy in Dublin since the start of this nightmare asking for help and have maintained contact throughout. I have never made a secret of this, and have referred to it in numerous interviews. It has been made clear to me throughout my dialogue with the State Department, in no uncertain terms, that Anthony is not ever going to be allowed into the US.

These claims now circulating are a direct result of a phone conversation I had with the Embassy on Wednesday 14 May, 2014 and subsequent email correspondence sent Thursday 15 May, 2014 in which I highlighted the heightened risk to our safety and the safety of the participants in the project as a result of Sinn Fein’s orchestration.

That contents/aspects of our communication, however inaccurately spun, appeared days later in a Sunday tabloid is a matter of serious concern, not least because of the privacy violations and increased risk it indicates.

I have requested from the State Department a formal investigation into how information that I had raised our safety with the Embassy last week ended up in the papers. Either our phone/email is compromised, or the Embassy’s communications are, and/or there has been a serious breach of protocol and illegal privacy violations have occurred.

I have also filed a complaint with the Garda and requested an investigation from them into the matter.

Carrie Twomey

Excerpt from email sent by Carrie Twomey to US State Department, Wed 21 May 2014:

“Can you also please advise on the status of the requested investigation into the Sunday World article based on our communications of last week?

The fact that contents of a phone conversation and email correspondence between ourselves that took place on Wednesday and Thursday appeared to have been published in the Sunday World tabloid is alarming and may mean that Embassy correspondence has been compromised, whether by unauthorized electronic access to my phone and email or monitoring of U.S. governmental communications. In the alternative, it means that communications between U.S. citizens have been monitored by agencies in the U.K.

If this information was not obtained via electronic means then there is a leak which indicates at the least extremely serious and illegal privacy violations and/or breach of protocol. Neither of these scenarios are appealing but must be addressed immediately. As I have not had any response to my previous email requesting an investigation, I am again repeating my request for a formal investigation and would like to know what steps will be taken.

I have also today filed a complaint regarding the issue with the Garda and requested they investigate what, if any, illegal surveillance is on our home/phone/internet, as the violation of my communication with the US State Department is a serious breach.”

Email sent by Carrie Twomey to US State Department, Wed 15 May 2014:

“Thank you again for taking the time to speak with me yesterday afternoon. I believe I have made my position clear. I understand that our children and I can go to America at any time but that in doing so we must abandon their father to his fate. [The Consul General] was also unequivocal on our options. Given Anthony’s conviction, he will not be allowed into the United States. As we discussed yesterday this was conveyed to me when we first spoke a year ago. You outlined the difficulties any visa application would encounter due to his status and spoke of the best possibility being what you referred to as a remote long shot of a ‘golden ticket’. This was the conversation where you also suggested Boston College would be the ideal place to employ Anthony, which eloquently demonstrated to me the level of interest and seriousness this issue was being treated with: none. It was not being taken seriously at any level and its ramifications obviously not understood and glibly dismissed.

In other words, Anthony was not going to be allowed entry. In subsequent meetings and conversations with yourself and [the CG] this was consistently and clearly conveyed, including during yesterday’s conversation. In my last meeting with [the CG] and in yesterday’s phone conversation with you my options are either to break up my family or wait until either Anthony is killed or the children are harmed before the US State Department can and/or will do anything. Neither yourself nor [the CG] contradicted or denied that view when it was put to either of you.

In addition to my own family’s safety, as I have explained, all those who have participated in the Boston College oral history project are at risk. I noted to you yesterday that people who had nothing to do with the project are being put at risk due to the vicious hate campaign being orchestrated and conducted by Sinn Fein. Ivor Bell, the only person charged as a result of the seizure of the archives — the 77 year old man charged with aiding and abetting based on the tapes of “Z” — is being referred to as the “Boston Tout” as you will have seen on the Sunday World front page previously sent to you. Mr Adams will not want the trial of Mr Bell to go forward given what would be revealed in court should the tapes of “Z” be aired. Bell, who lives in West Belfast, is at great risk of serious harm.

I will reiterate that none of this should be happening. Whoever made the decision to facilitate the MLAT subpoena request has not only put my family at risk but has also destabilized the security of the situation in Northern Ireland. It was not a matter of being forced to comply with legal obligations, as the MLAT is not de facto automatic (and no nation would give up its own sovereignty and interests so easily). Scope is provided to seek consultation and refuse cooperation based upon established foreign policy and the likelihood of successful prosecution arising. In the case of the subpoenas of the Boston College archive, neither threshold is met. The agreement of the US-UK extradition treaty specifically states that persons wanted for pre 1998 crimes in Northern Ireland will not be sought. This is due to America’s established foreign policy of supporting and facilitating the peace process which has been the policy under numerous Presidents. So it is ridiculous that no person can be extradited but archival material apparently can be. Someone should have been asking questions and clearly they dropped a massive ball.

In addition, it is astounding that the British even need the Boston archives in the first place. They are utterly useless in court beyond hearsay. Gerry Adams’s driver, Roy McShane, was working for the British for years. The Chief of Staff of Sinn Fein, Denis Donaldson, was also working for the British for decades. The head of the IRA’s internal security, Freddie Scappaticci, was a British agent, as were many other people. The PSNI do not need the Boston College oral history archives to prosecute anyone and it is ludicrous that the only evidence they produced upon arresting Adams was the archives, books, and newspaper articles. That alone makes a mockery of the whole ‘legal obligation’ chimera of the disastrous decision to issue the subpoenas.

I am not going to let my family become collateral damage for whatever idiotic decisions are being made by people who should know better. I have spent 3 years now begging you people to stop this train wreck and all that’s been done is taking my warnings to protect the assets of the British. I am beyond angry.

The oral history was bravely done in good faith and should have been a testament to the benefits of the peace process and foreign policy success of the United State’s investment in supporting and nurturing it. Its confidentiality should have been protected. Instead the lives of all those who participated in it are at risk, and my family, my children, are on the line.

You and I will both be lighting candles for very different reasons and praying that no lives are lost or ruined as a result. The State Department and the Department of Justice better be praying that their incompetence does not result in the needless sacrifice of American lives abroad or harm coming to anyone who participated in an American university’s noble project. I am just praying this nightmare ends with everyone intact.

Neither Paula Mackin, James O’Shea nor anyone from the Sunday World and Irish Central contacted us prior to their publication of the inaccurate Sunday World piece. The Irish Central piece went out over the wires and was replicated across the web. Neither of the reporters nor the papers involved have attempted to contact us either pre or post publication.

SITE MAP

The value of the Oral Tradition is its democracy; it doesn't give to an intellectual elite the exclusive right to shape a communal memory and the collective memory. It makes into a common wealth the story of our shared lives. It's something that we share in common – and it's like a collection plate into which we can all put something: our stories, our myths and the ease with which we are able to, in some way, cross boundaries. - Cleophus Thomas, Jr.

First Circuit Court of Appeals

May, 2013

“… we must forcefully conclude that preserving the judicial power to supervise the enforcement of subpoenas in the context of the present case, guarantees the preservation of a balance of powers… In substance, we rule that the enforcement of subpoenas is an inherent judicial function which, by virtue of the doctrine of separation of powers, cannot be constitutionally divested from the courts of the United States. Nothing in the text of the US-UK MLAT, or its legislative history, has been cited by the government to lead us to conclude that the courts of the United States have been divested of an inherent judicial role that is basic to our function as judges.”

“… the district court acted within its discretion in ordering their production, it abused its discretion in ordering the production of a significant number of interviews that only contain information that is in fact irrelevant to the subject matter of the subpoena.”

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